I hope Daschle serves the humans better than his lobbyist wife Linda did the airline passenger. Sorry, I can't cite a MSM source, as usual, they weren't interested in pursuing the Democrat Senate Majority Leader's potential conflict of interests. Salon ran a less detailed piece than the LA Weekly,by Arianna Huffington.

I'm not seeing much change yet. Where are the fresh faces? The new talent? Hispanics? Women other than Hillary?

I don't know that I understand the criticism that Obama's selection of Clinton old hands undercuts his "change you can believe in" schtick. Are the critics really suggesting that when Obama talked about "change" and moving "beyond the past" he meant something other than "moving beyond the Bush administration" and "changing back to 1968/2000 (delete as applicable)"?

Moreover, even if you took the rhetoric seriously, who did you think he was going to appoint? Obama is serious about enacting his agenda, we must assume; he is surely canny enough to recognize that his own familiarity with the machinery of Washington (and thus his ability to make the mill turn his way) is somewhat lacking. It stands to reason that he will bring in old hands who know how the system works, and will keep them on a short leash.

(There's an important contrast here, because Obama means to "change" the federal bureaucracy by expanding it, whereas I want to "change" it in the manner that the French Revolution "changed" the status of France's nobility; it requires familiarity with the internal operations of a federal agency to make it work the way you want it to, but to dismantle it requires far less familiarity. Hence, Obama must bring in insiders; Palin can bring in outsiders.)

Well Simon, you may be right as far as what he meant by "change" and "Change we can believe in" and 'Change we need" may not rise to the standard of false advertising but as one who dismissed him as full of BS, in large part due to the idea that he really wasn't going to do much about the culture in D.C. that has affected both parties, this is a small consolation prize.

Some people actually thought he meant more than changing the party occupying the White House.

Simon's right and Garage is funny. Clinton brought in outsiders. How'd his first couple years work out?

If I was opening a restaurant, I'd hire people that knew how to cook the dishes the public told me they wanted cooked. I'd even hire people who had worked in restaurants that had failed and could explain to me why they failed and what they would do differently.

Obama is serious about enacting his agenda, we must assume; he is surely canny enough to recognize that his own familiarity with the machinery of Washington (and thus his ability to make the mill turn his way) is somewhat lacking. It stands to reason that he will bring in old hands who know how the system works, and will keep them on a short leash.

...is essentially saying that despite all the defense of his experience and being ready for the job, he still needs to have a bunch of Clinton holdovers hold his hand sine he lacks the chops to manuever the landscape on his own.

I'd even hire people who had worked in restaurants that had failed and could explain to me why they failed and what they would do differently.

That's assuming they know why it failed to begin with. Considering that Clinton holdovers generally blame the VRWC, Rush Limbaugh and talk radio in general for their failures, I'm not impressed with that analogy.

How many hands do you think the president has, Hoosier? There's a reason positions like Chief of Staff and HHS Secretary exist. It's called delegation to responsible and experienced personnel.

Already you've seen a change in tone from Rahm Emanuel that reflects his new boss's agenda. Rahm's an incrementalist by reputation but is now making lots of noise about pushing big legislation through. Sounds like change to me.

"...Where experience in Washington doesn’t always translate to results for the American people.

And so if we do not change our politics – if we do not fundamentally change the way Washington works – then the problems we’ve been talking about for the last generation will be the same ones that haunt us for generations to come...."

“We want something new,” Obama says. “We want to turn the page …

"The American people are hungry for a different kind of politics – the kind of politics based on the ideals this country was founded upon," he said. "The idea that we are all connected as one people. That we all have a stake in one another. … The ways of Washington must change."

It’s time to turn the page for hope. It’s time to turn the page for justice. It is time to turn the page and write the next chapter in the great American story. Let’s begin the work. Let’s do this together. Let’s turn that page. Thank you."

"Considering that Clinton holdovers generally blame the VRWC, Rush Limbaugh and talk radio in general for their failures"

Rush would like you to think the left holds him responsible for the early '90's Clinton collapse. It's why he and Hannity continue to fear-monger about the Fairness Doctrine despite the fact that most of the left, including Obama, could give a shit about bringing that back.

But if we're talking about the 1993/4 Hillarycare debacle, it wasn't Rush or even some "VRWC." It's generally acknowledged that it was naivete about the process and a refusal to include Congress in the development of the proposal. And you'd better believe they've learned the real lessons about how to get health care reform done right.

Treavor, exactly what experience has Daschle had running something? Besides his mouth. He's a Washington insider which is not the same as an experienced administrator. As the HHS head, he will get to spend humdreds of billions. Rolm I can concede will probably be a good Chief of Staff because he is an insufferable pr**k.

SteveR said..."Some people actually thought he meant more than changing the party occupying the White House."

I can't imagine who. I mean, when Obama talked about "the past," I always understood that for Obama, "the past" began on December 12, 2000, and will end on January 20th, 2009, and I didn't realize anyone thought differently. People took him seriously as an agent of change? Really?

Trevor Jackson said..."How many hands do you think the president has, Hoosier? There's a reason positions like Chief of Staff and HHS Secretary exist. It's called delegation to responsible and experienced personnel."

A President's role in his administration, I suppose, is much like a composer conducting his own work in concert. It isn't necessary that he know how to play the flute, for example. Qua the composer, he must know what notes a flute can play, and the physical limits of the instrument, and he must be able to convey the part to the person who will play it. And qua the conductor, he must have flautists who can play the part well, can play well with others as part of a team, and who can follow the lead of the conductor.

Likewise, the President need not personally take care of the business of filing criminal prosecutions, for example. He has an Attorney General, who "is the hand of the President in taking care that the laws of the United States in legal proceedings, and in the prosecution of offenses, be faithfully executed," United States v. Cox, 342 F.2d 167, 171 (5th Cir. 1965) (en banc), and who in turn has legions of staff to assist him in this task. And Obama has a Secretary of Health and Human Services to run that department, and so forth. If Obama is choosing people who understand his vision and are expected to be competent in making it happen, there isn't necessarily an inconsistency between his promise of change and his appointments. If, on the other hand, Obama gives these people discretion, if he allows them to develop policies and fiefdoms of their own rather than serving as instruments of the President's will, then that will be (as I expect it to be) something short of change we can believe in.

No one voted for Obama because they thought he was a wizbang flautist; they voted for him because they liked the overture he wrote. It remains to be seen if they can stomach the rest of the piece.

I think it's funny that the RNC pumped out a memo about BHO's appointments where they were pushing the "that's not change you can believe in" theme. Haven't right wing radio, tube and tubes folks been pushing this for a at least a few days?

Could the RNC possibly be less original and less leading? Not that the DNC is any better, but for now, they don't need to be.

Here's my question; is Duncan the change we can believe in?

BTW, the RNC website has an image for their facebook thing that is a total copy of BHO's campaign website (but at least they didn't make the whole RNC site look like BHO's, like Netanyahu did.)

And, the RNC website is asking for advice. You conservative net-roots equivalents better hurry on over there to get things back on track, as you see it.

Trevor, I feel bad asking Boehner and Cantor to leave - I have nothing against them personally - but the fact is that they're part of the problem. When your party takes a thumping this hard, it's time for new leadership. And that's particularly true here when 90% of the reason we got that thumping was because people associate the Republican Party with what this bunch of RINOs in Washington - Delay, Frist, Bush and their congressional enablers. A line has to be drawn under that era or the voters are going to keep on punishing us.

1jpb, the great hope is that they'll pick Steele. Still, to paraphrase Thomas Brackett Reed (as I'm wont to do), they could do much worse and I suspect they probably will.

While Obama does need to pick people who know what their doing, there is a pool of thousands of qualified democrats who work for states and companies--there is relatively little need to resort to former hacks of the Clinton administration.

How many hands do you think the president has, Hoosier? There's a reason positions like Chief of Staff and HHS Secretary exist. It's called delegation to responsible and experienced personnel.

I get it!!!! It was inconceivable that Palin might accidentally fall into the Presidential slot, because she wasn't 100% superwoman prepared to assume the duties at a moments notice with no assistance from anyone.

BUT....

It's perfectly acceptable for Mr. Junior Senator to acknowledge that he can't handle the job solo and must delegate and rely on advisors from day one in office.

DBQ said: "It's perfectly acceptable for Mr. Junior Senator to acknowledge that he can't handle the job solo and must delegate and rely on advisors from day one in office. What a bunch of hypocrites you are."